really the season tripped coming out of the starting gate with hurricane sandy. the impact in the northeast and mid-atlantic, both those regions of the country actually had negative holiday seasons for the holiday-related sectors that we track. other areas of the country that were not impacted by significant weather in the southeast, south central, mountain and west, were up 2% to 4% year over year. so really depended on where you were in the country, how but during the holiday season. >> okay. that's definitely interesting to look at, the regional breakdown. i also want to talk about promotions. every year we see the promotions start, it seems, earlier, and discounts are a little deeper. at the end of the day when we're tabulating these numbers, are deep discounts really the way to go, or does it end up hurting the retailers in the end? >> i think a couple of events, the weakness in the first part of november did spur some additional discounting in november. and that did seem to be effective in generating sales growth in the second half of november. that was rel